


Blood On His Hands

by celluloid



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Amputation, Angst, Blood, Bombing, Gen, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-15 21:17:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2243805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celluloid/pseuds/celluloid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something happens. Bruce needs to take both control and drastic measures to save Tony's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood On His Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the Avengers kink meme way back in May '12. Original prompt/fill:
> 
> http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/5102.html?thread=5451758#t5451758
> 
> Prompt specifically requested amputation. I have little to no medical knowledge, so researched the specifics as best I could while writing. The slash is really mild, and can be read as gen.

At one moment, he’s standing in a relatively open space of the lab, simply looking up at one of the monitors and pondering over the algorithms displayed on it. The next, he’s down on the floor, back arching as he struggles to keep control, ears ringing, breathing in too much dust.  
  
Bruce writhes on the ground where he’d instinctually dropped down, trying to make sense of what’s just happened while he still has the capacity to do so. There’s a roar inside his head and he can feel it, he can feel muscles bulging under his skin, already knows his shirt has ripped, and he has absolutely no idea what just happened.  
  
One moment, algorithms. The next, complete and utter chaos and somebody tried to attack him, nobody attacks him, don’t people get that by now, nobody lays a hand on him ever he will completely destroy whoever it was, tear them limb from limb and—  
  
Somehow, through the pounding of his head, he hears a wheeze.  
  
Then a cough.  
  
Bruce freezes. He opens his eyes from where they’d been previously screwed shut. He knows they’re glowing a bright green, he knows his skin is tinged green right now, but he’s just… stopped.  
  
He looks up.  
  
“Tony?” he calls out, voice not entirely his own. He can feel the Hulk in the back of his mind, impatient, wanting to hurt whoever tried to hurt them, wanting to smash, and if Tony was hurt too then—  
  
Bruce has to stop, close his eyes, focus on breathing. Calm down. Steady the heartbeat. He has to know what’s going on first.  
  
“Tony?” he tries again, and the voice is more his own now. The presence in his mind huffs, but the presence in his mind might not actually be the guy he needs right now. Bruce feels his body shrink down a bit, and gasps in pain as it does so, falling to the cold, dusty floor once again.  
  
He lies there, just breathing, focusing on the rise and fall of his chest, until he feels himself in a ton of pain, but at least at normal size. He looks up again, then, sees his hand isn’t green, and then looks around at his surroundings.  
  
It’s a mess. Where once there had been a clean, pristine lab filled with technology and gadgets and monitors and shiny things and everything was beautiful, now there’s just dust and rubble and shrapnel. It doesn’t take a genius to piece together what’s happened: an assault has been launched on Stark Tower, and the lab got hit. And now it’s a mess. And the only thing left to do is to find the perpetrator, and stop him, and he isn’t exactly the one to do that.  
  
Bruce stands up, legs less shaky now, and starts to go green again – by his own control this time, now that he knows just what the hell is going on – when he notices it. He promptly stops, caught in uncertainty, before he bounds over a pile of rubble.  
  
Because everything may be grey and dirty, but that just makes it all the easier to pick out blood. And from there, Tony’s body.  
  
“Tony!” Bruce calls out again, kneeling at his side, and much to Hulk’s displeasure, he has his heart rate more under control now and is staving off letting him out. His priorities just changed: first he has to make sure that Tony is okay. Hulk isn’t capable of that. Bruce is.  
  
Bruce focuses on Tony’s face. It looks relatively undamaged, and that’s helping him keep in control right now, because maybe it means Tony’s okay. He gingerly shakes his shoulder, trying to will a response from the other man. The arc reactor’s glow still shines through Tony’s shirt, and his chest is still moving, so that’s a good sign. “Hey, Tony, come back to me,” he murmurs. “Open your eyes, wake up, and let’s figure this out so we can go help.”  
  
Tony coughs again. His eyes flutter open. They take a moment to focus, narrowing in confusion before recognition dawns on him. “Big Guy?”  
  
Bruce nods. “Yeah, right here,” he says. “You okay?”  
  
“I don’t—um,” Tony starts, blinking in confusion. “Wait. Bruce?”  
  
“… What?”  
  
“You’re still you. But your eyes.”

Bruce blinks. His heart rate is higher than normal, but he feels well enough in control. He blinks again and can feel it, can feel Hulk still tugging at his limits, but he ignores that for now, concern for his friend overtaking the desire to lash out at whoever tried to hurt him. “That’s not important right now,” he says. “First we need to…”  
  
He trails off as he finally allows himself to remember the blood he saw. His gaze travels past the arc reactor, further down Tony’s body, and he feels his stress levels climb again, when right now this is  _the exact opposite of what he needs_.  
  
“What? What is it?” Tony asks, faintly, as he tries to pull himself up to look at what Bruce is looking at.  
  
Except he can’t. Where just moments ago Tony’s right leg had been there, now only half of it is.  
  
“You’re bleeding out,” Bruce hitches, stress levels climbing, because this is actually really really awful, and he’s going to end up transforming, and Tony needs medical attention right now and the Hulk is not equipped to handle that, and a quick look around confirms that they’re stuck where they are with no way out, rubble blocking any potential exit, and this is really not very good at all.  
  
“What?” Tony snaps. He somehow finds the strength to push his torso upwards using his arms, and when he briefly catches sight of his leg, he completely pales. He then looks at Bruce, panic-stricken. “Hey. Hey. I need you to stay with me,” he pleads, voice growing more and more desperate with each word as he sees Bruce start to grow. “You know I love the jolly green giant more than anybody else, but um, not right now I don’t. Right now I love anyone who can be a doctor the most. And that would be you. So I kind of, um, need you,” he rambles, eyes flicking back and forth between the remains of a leg he can barely see and the mess of a scientist.  
  
Bruce is panting heavily. His muscles are tensing in desperate will to keep everything together, but he just got bombed and Tony’s missing half a leg and he caught a glimpse of the other leg and nope, he’s furious right now, and panicked, and scared, and—  
  
“Please Bruce.  _Please._ ”  
  
Bruce shuts his eyes, feels himself not all there, but tries to block it out. Everything is okay. He’s done this before – he’s saved kids before – and he’s stayed calm the entire time. He knows how to handle this. He just needs to breathe. To calm down. To find himself, to tell Hulk that now isn’t a very good time, but later they can let it all out together, and it will be glorious. Just not right now.  
  
He feels himself come back down. Opens his eyes, knows he still isn’t all here, but this is going to have to do – he can barely keep himself under control as things are now. As long as he’s still mostly in control, though, then he can do this.  
  
He can do this.  
  
“Okay,” Bruce breathes. “Okay.” The voice is his, so that’s a good thing. He shifts his position, moving from Tony’s head down to the legs. He kneels down, devoting all his attention to the remaining half of Tony’s right leg.  
  
Whatever they got hit with was aimed spectacularly well if the intended target was Tony. Considering the size of the lab, the fact that any of Tony’s body was caught directly in the fire really is nothing short of a miracle. Or, well. Depending on how one looks at it. Miracle probably isn’t the right word.  
  
Bruce grimaces at the wound, then reaches in, pinching Tony’s artery shut. “Whatever it was,” he says, focusing on keeping his voice even, trying to shift into normal doctor mode, “it didn’t—didn’t cauterize your artery. I need to ligate it. Um.” He breathes, rubs at the back of his neck with his other hand. “Where’s the first aid kit?”  
  
Tony sobs out something like a laugh. “Really?”  
  
“Um. Yes?”  
  
Tony’s head is back on the floor now. He stares up at the ceiling. “Well, let’s see. It’s usually kept somewhere by one of the walls, except the lab’s just been blown up, so who knows where the walls even are right now, let alone if it’s even among them. Maybe it’s buried under all the rubble. You know what? That’s probably where it is, actually. Under the rubble.”  
  
Bruce stares blankly at Tony. “I can’t leave you.”  
  
“You probably can’t dig through this rubble by yourself, either.”  
  
Bruce groans. “The Other Guy could.”  
  
“And he can’t play doctor.”

There’s a pained, desperate smirk on Tony’s face now. “JARVIS?” he calls out. “JARVIS, can you get anyone down here?”  
  
No response.  
  
“JARVIS?” Bruce tries, louder.  
  
Still nothing.  
  
“Anybody?!” Bruce yells, and this might not be such a good idea but he’s allowed to freak out a bit at this moment. “JARVIS? Natasha? Steve?  _ANYBODY?!_ ” he roars out, voice not his own once again, but he’s louder this way and—  
  
“No,” Tony breathes out. “Nobody. Fuck. Fuck. Bruce, you have to stay with me. Bruce. Please.”  
  
Bruce whirls on Tony. “I don’t know if I can,” he growls out. His heart rate is increasing. They’re trapped in the lab, and all the communications are down. It’s just the two of them with no way to talk to anybody else, and Bruce has his fingers pinching Tony’s artery shut to keep him from losing too much blood. The only way for him to get out is to Hulk out, and if he Hulks out Tony’s all but guaranteed to die, either from blood loss or from excessive smashing or both.  
  
“You have to,” Tony exhales, shutting his eyes. “Otherwise I’m—“  
  
“Stop,” Bruce interrupts him, pleading, and his voice is calming back down. He can still feel the green in his eyes, can still feel the pulsing rage and panic under his skin, but he just focuses on breathing. “Just—I—Look, okay, this isn’t going to be sterile but…”  
  
“Better than dying.” His voice is weak.  
  
Bruce runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah, okay.” He brings his hand down, feels the frayed fabric of his shirt, notices the loose threads, but the fabric should still be thin and strong enough, and fuck it. He really had nothing else to work with here. He’s able to tear off a few threads with one hand, use them on the exposed artery before unpinching it, cringing in anticipation.  
  
It holds.  
  
Bruce sighs in relief before removing the rest of his shirt, tearing a strip off from it. He takes the strip to tie it as tightly as he can above Tony’s knee, hoping the makeshift tourniquet will work as an adequate reinforcement until something proper can be done.  
  
“Okay,” Bruce exhales, wiping his arm across his forehead before he realizes it’s covered in Tony’s blood. He groans and shakes his head at that, but he can feel himself calming down. “Okay, I think that should be enough to hold for a while. At least until we can get you to an actual hospital.”  
  
“Mmm,” Tony murmurs from below him, eyes still shut. “Thanks. You don’t suppose you could…?”  
  
“I don’t think the Other Guy would know what to do with you like this,” Bruce sighs. He looks at the pool of blood surrounding Tony’s half-leg, the way it’s soaked into his own pants as he’d kneeled in it without a second thought. Bruce looks at the rest of the leg, the splintered bone inside, the shredded muscle, the torn skin hanging limply off the side, bits splayed on the ground beside the rest of it, the parts of it that simply do not  _exist_  anymore.  
  
And then he looks over to the right.  
  
“Shit,” he says.  
  
Tony tries to lean his neck back up, but can’t. “What? What is it?”  
  
Bruce looks back to Tony’s face, just seeing the tiny cuts along his features for the first time. He also finally sees his eyes, dulled with pain and yet still curious, scared but with a need to understand just what, exactly, is going on.  
  
He looks back at Tony’s left leg, where things look just fine above the knee – much like the right leg, really – but below the knee the skin is split wide open. Bruce can look in, see the splintered bone here, this leg’s own shredded muscle, the shrapnel digging into the discoloured tissue – internal and external – the frayed blood vessels, but smaller and not as noticeable. The light trickle of blood, decorating the barely intact portions of Tony’s skin, the oozing pus it’s starting to mingle with, and he’d been so focused on the blood loss of the other leg that he’d somehow completely missed the mess here—  
  
“Bruce? Bruce, are you still with me?”

He is, because his heart has basically stopped now as he looks over the carnage. It’s like he isn’t really here anymore. His hand reaches out of its own will, a finger poking into the gaping whole in Tony’s leg, where there’s a decently sized piece of shrapnel digging into his muscle. Without even really thinking he reaches in to pull it out, noting the tinier pieces scattered throughout, knowing there’s no way for him to get to them all, not here, knowing that it’s just the two of them for god knows how much longer—  
  
Tony’s cry of pain draws him back out of his mind which, for once, is completely quiet. No residual anger – he’s just holding the piece of shrapnel, right in Tony’s line of sight.  
  
Brown eyes meet brown eyes and then Tony’s face splits into a grin, and now Bruce is starting to freak out again when Tony starts to laugh.  
  
“Seriously?” he asks, eyeing the shrapnel that has just been extracted from his leg. “I mean, really?”  
  
Bruce breaks the eye contact. “I can see inside your other leg,” he mutters, focusing his gaze on it. “There’s a lot more in there too. I can’t… I can’t get to all of it, I can’t…”  
  
“This shit sure loves me, doesn’t it? Wants to be inside me. I mean, not that I can blame it or anything, but the feeling isn’t exactly mutual.”  
  
Bruce really wants to shake Tony, to make him shut up because this is actually a very bad thing, but he’s still transfixed by the fact that Tony’s left leg has managed to stay so intact despite a very noticeable lack of skin and muscle and tissue in general. That and shaking him right now probably wouldn’t be the best idea.  
  
He looks away from the mess, looks around to see if there’s any way out. He really – he really can’t leave Tony alone in this state.  
  
“JARVIS?” he tries, again, to no avail, and he wonders just how long it’s going to take the others to get down here. To realize that there’s no Iron Man or raging green monster fighting alongside them. Or if they even have the time to realize it right now. If they’re even winning the fight right now. He has no idea what’s going on and he has no way of leaving in order to find out.  
  
“Tony?” Bruce tries, instead, noticing that the hysterical laughter has died down. “Tony? You still with me?”  
  
“Bruce?” Tony replies, voice soft.  
  
“Yeah,” Bruce says.  
  
“My leg – it’s gone, right?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Tony swallows. He shuts his eyes before he speaks again. “My other one – am I going to lose it, too?”  
  
Bruce glances back down. Sure, with enough cosmetic surgery, it could look fine, but the extent of muscle damage if hefty, and from what he can see that tibia looks just about done, and the fibula has splintered off every which way. The blood vessels there aren’t ever going to be fixed. He briefly considers lying, thinking of what might be better for Tony’s mental state, but he asked like he already knew the answer.  
  
“Yeah,” Bruce says.  
  
Tony opens his eyes again. Bruce can see the tears welling up in them, the small paths working their way down his face, clearing away some of the dust and grime, but he’s totally silent otherwise. He lets out a shaky breath. “And it’s still just the two of us, right buddy?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“And we don’t know how long it’s going to take for somebody else to find us.”  
  
“No,” Bruce says, beating down his pessimistic urge to insert the word “if” into Tony’s flat statement.  
  
“Okay,” Tony says. He takes a deep breath, then looks Bruce right in the eyes. “Okay, then. Do it.”

“Do what?” Bruce asks, even though he already knows what.  
  
“The longer we wait, the more of my leg I’m going to end up losing, right? So cut it off right now. Spare as much of it as you can to just get it done right now.” His words are choked, being forced out of his throat. Tony shuts his eyes again, resting his head back down on the floor. “I want you to save as much of my leg as you can. So do it.”  
  
Bruce shifts uneasily. He stands up from his spot, unpeeling his pants from Tony’s blood on the floor as he tries to bring some life back into his legs. He finds himself pacing by Tony’s foot, eyes focused in on it the whole time. “Tony. This area isn’t sterile. If we just wait for them to find us, we’ll be able to get you to a real hospital. You won’t get infected there.”  
  
“If I get infected here,” Tony struggles with the words, “then they can remove more of my leg when we get out. If I don’t, then more of my leg is saved.” He takes a shaky breath. “Bruce, I just – want to keep as much as possible. And I trust you. You’ll do fine.” This is where he’d smile, give a reassuring grin, and possibly call Bruce a name or two to drill him into it, but Bruce can see the exhaustion and the fear lining Tony’s face.  
  
He looks back at the rubble surrounding them. Finally takes note of the desks Tony is lying by for the first time, and the contents on top. Evidently, what Tony had been working on at the time of the blast had involved the use of sharp, pointed pieces of metal – enough that that he should be able to make use of it, but…  
  
“Tony,” Bruce says, gently. When Tony doesn’t respond, he presses further. “Tony, I need you to look at me.”  
  
With a weary sigh, Tony opens his eyes. They’re dulled, and hurting, and he can see the blackened gore around his leg, knows that it has to come off, but if somebody comes to them soon then they can avoid this.  
  
But those same eyes trust him. People don’t trust him – they just don’t – and yet here Tony is, actually asking him to mutilate him, because he trusts him to be able to do it right.  
  
Bruce can feel his heart pounding. He knows the green is creeping back into his eyes, but he keeps his gaze steady with Tony regardless.  
  
“Tony, I don’t have any anesthetics here,” he says, voice flat and void of emotion. “No pain killers. I do this here, right now, and it is going to hurt like hell, and I’m going to need you to stay with me throughout it.” Other than the tinge of green, Bruce’s face is schooled into a completely neutral expression. “I need you to realize this before I can do anything. You’re asking me to cut off your leg in an unsterile, drugless environment. You’ve already lost a lot of blood. There’s still a chance that help could come, so are you sure about this.”  
  
Tony holds his gaze throughout the speech, showing that he’s absorbed every word. When Bruce is done, he asks, “Do you know how long it’s been?”  
  
The question catches Bruce off guard. “No, I… I mean, the blast itself had to have happened quickly, but after that…”  
  
“Exactly,” Tony says. He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “We don’t know how long it’s been since then. We don’t know if anybody has even started looking for us. We don’t know how long it’s going to take to get us out of here. The only thing we do know is that I’m going to lose my leg no matter what. This is the best chance I have.”  
  
Tony swallows air. He shuts his eyes, turning his head away from Bruce. A shudder goes through his body, and then he says, “I’m ready.”  
  
Bruce cocks his head and narrows his eyes at the figure before him. No more Tony, just a patient, and fine, he can handle this. He kneels down by Tony’s left leg and presses along the injured area, stopping just below the knee. He’s already figuring this out – this is his best shot at keeping as much of the leg as possible, and if he waits much longer, Tony’s likely going to lose that area anyway.

He takes the remains of his discarded shirt and gathers it together, thickening the material before tying it as tightly as he possibly can above Tony’s other knee, getting prepared to have Tony’s left leg mirror his right one. He knots it before finding a stray stylus on top of the desk, near the jagged pieces of metal he knows he’s about to use, and inserts the stylus into the knot, knotting it again before twisting.  
  
“That feel tight?” Bruce asks his patient.  
  
“Yeah,” Tony’s voice rasps out from beneath him. “Yeah, that’s – that’s extremely tight.”  
  
“Good,” Bruce says. He stands up to look over the desk again, selects the cleanest piece of scrap metal there he can find. He leans back down over Tony’s leg, taking in the blackening tissue, the shrapnel, the splintered bone. “I’m going to start cutting now. Below your knee.”  
  
Tony confirmed that this is what he wanted – so Bruce just dives right in. Initially he’s taken aback by just how well this metal slices through skin, through muscle, but he wants to get this over with as quickly as possible. Tony gasps and jerks in pain, but Bruce ignores it, focusing on his task, on how to do the best job he possibly can. Keep this as clean as he possibly can. His heart rate is steady, he’s in full control here, absorbing Tony’s sobs and murmuring sweet nothings in return as he cuts through the leg, separating the irreparable tissue from his teammate.  
  
“Tony,” Bruce says. He pauses in his work, looking down at what’s left. “You still with me?”  
  
Tony’s remained fairly quiet throughout the whole thing, but when Bruce looks at his face he can see the tears all the more clearly, the pained expression etched in. Tony takes a few deep breaths before responding, “Yeah.”  
  
“Okay,” Bruce replies. “Look. I’m going to have to cut the nerve now, okay? Then the bone. And after that we’ll be fine. We’re almost done, alright?”  
  
No response.  
  
“Tony,” Bruce says sternly.  
  
Still no response, until Tony replies, weakly, “… Okay.”  
  
Bruce switches over to a much more jagged scrap of metal he can actually use to saw through while Tony screams in pain for the first time. It’s loud, and piercing, and there are new sobs to accompany it, sobs Tony probably didn’t even think he had left in him, and Bruce just switches the metal and goes right back to work, thankful the bone has already been partially weakened from the blast and not making this terribly difficult, all the while saying, “You’re doing great Tony. You’re doing great. Almost done. You’re strong. You’ve gotten through this. It’s okay now,” while he works to tie off the remaining blood vessels, letting the damaged lower leg fall away from the healthier tissue that has a chance.  
  
Tony is shaking and sobbing audibly as Bruce, satisfied as he possibly can be with his work, moves away from Tony’s leg to his head. “Hey,” he says gently, reaching for him, softly stroking his hair, “it’s probably going to be fine. They’ll come for us, and then everything can be properly fixed at the hospital, but you’re going to be fine.”

He keeps stroking as Tony’s cries die down, as the shaking settles, until Tony opens his eyes and looks up at him with nothing but hurt and tears, and Bruce presses a kiss down to his forehead. “Just think, you’re even more badass now than you were yesterday.”  
  
Tony’s lips barely quirk upwards. “I was always this badass,” he whispers, voice hoarse and raw around the edges.  
  
Bruce smiles down at him before looking back up at his handiwork. Everything still looks okay – there’s no more bleeding, the pool of Tony’s blood already on the floor isn’t growing any deeper. He looks back down to see Tony following his gaze, and frowning, looking like he wants to lean up and assess the damage for himself. Bruce lays a gentle hand on his chest.  
  
“You don’t need to look,” he says.  
  
“Just,” Tony starts, feeling his way around the word before he coughs again. “Pisses me off,” he eventually continues. “Wish I still had my own fucking legs. They’re mine. Never said anyone could take them.”  
  
Bruce doesn’t bother correcting him. Instead, he just says, “You’ll build new ones. Awesomer ones.”  
  
“With rocket boots,” Tony agrees, quietly. “Then I can fly all the damn time.”  
  
Bruce laughs softly. He resumes stroking Tony’s scalp while Tony talks about the modifications he’s going to make, chipping in with his own input when he can. Occasionally he moves from Tony’s head just to check in on things, but he’s done a good enough job for the time being, so he spends most of his time kneeling by Tony’s head, relaxed and calm and just  _there_ , doing his best to keep Tony’s focus away from the pain.  
  
That’s the sight Steve and Thor find by the time they’re able to make their way through the rubble hours later: Tony Stark, lying on his back, one half of one leg lying in a pool of blood, the other nowhere to be found, with two tourniquets tied above the knees, his eyes shut while he quietly drones on about being taller, with a Bruce Banner that never quite Hulked out sitting by his head, leaning over protectively, Tony’s blood all over his hands and all the better for it.


End file.
